I see the book's publication is from 1958 and much of the imagery suggests a bygone era. Are all or most of these still in use today?
It's amusing to note that the first picture has in the middle of the last row, the now ubiquitous "Heavy Metal horns." I remember reading an old interview with Ronnie James Dio, who was Italian, where he said he picked up the gesture from his Grandmother. It's widely accepted that he is responsible for introducing this gesture into modern popular culture, non-Italian anyways. Some have pinpointed he started using this on stage in late 70's during his time in Black Sabbath.
from a quick look at the first image of "Napolitan gestures" at least money, stealing and wait a moment are still largely in use.
Horn sign that legend says RJ Dio introduced by simply flipping the way his grandmother did the gesture (we do it palm facing the floor, the metal one is palm facing the face) it's still very popular as a scaramantic gesture against bad luck.
Yes, they're still so prevalent in Italy and Italian-descendant cultures that I thought they'd be self-explanatory since they come to me so naturally. The one on the cover of the book for example, is literally just a question mark, with all of the various connotations a question mark might have (even as a single sentence by itself "?"), and is used so often I can't believe other cultures don't have any hand gesture for it nor adopted it.
It's amusing to note that the first picture has in the middle of the last row, the now ubiquitous "Heavy Metal horns." I remember reading an old interview with Ronnie James Dio, who was Italian, where he said he picked up the gesture from his Grandmother. It's widely accepted that he is responsible for introducing this gesture into modern popular culture, non-Italian anyways. Some have pinpointed he started using this on stage in late 70's during his time in Black Sabbath.